A few months after we purchased the car in August of 2014, I was driving on the freeway, got off at my exit and the car completely turned off.

I took in the car into the dealership the next day and they ran some test and nothing showed up. They claimed that it could be that when I got off the freeway I turned on the A/C and it was just a sporadic item that the power got drained and it turned of the car. When it went in for the first oil change at 3k miles we did complain of the knocking in the engine and they stated that's normal on Hyundais, which is weird because I had a 2012 same model and I never experienced this issue of the engine knocking. I did receive the recall test for the engine at the end oflast year (2017) and we took it into the Hyundai dealership. But there test claims that there's nothing wrong with the car.

This February I started to notice a knock in my engine and noticed that my engine oil was below low. I was surprised because I had an oil change in January. My first thought was anger at the Mechanic shop which provided the oil change because they must have forgotten to fill my engine with oil. I bought the recommended engine oil from a Discount Auto Parts and topped off.

Two weeks later I started to have a more profound knocking in my engine when ever I start to accelerate my car or go uphill. I checked my oil and it turned out I had no oil in my engine. I checked for oil leaks on the floor and every where that I park but there was none. I filled it up again and checked my engine the following week and it turned out that I was low in oil again. Took it to a mechanic where I had an oil change and went through the same issue again in a few weeks. I was putting oil in my car every week keeping it full but I was experiencing engine knocks and sometimes white smoke coming out of my tailpipe.

I made an appointment at my local dealer on May 12th since I am a teacher and we were testing in my school from March through May 11th and I could not get a day off and my local dealers do not look into engine issues on Saturdays. My local dealer informed me that my engine needs to be replaced because of engine sludge. They said this was due to lack of maintenance . I informed them that I perform regular maintenance on my car and that could not be due to lack of maintenance. Turns out that their is a recall on my car for engine issues including knocks and engine sludge (campaign 162). The problem is that it is unresolved and the dealer may not provide a loaner for me. My car is part of the Alabama Theta II engine recall and Class Action Lawsuit affecting Sonata (2011-2014) and Hyundai Motors has been great so far but my local dealer is another story.

When the engine started knocking (spun bearing) it was 15 months old with only 24,000 kms (15,000 miles). I do my own maintenance and use top of the line AMSOIL oil and filters - better than 99% of all oils out there. Owners manual says to change oil every 12,000 kms (7,500 miles). I did the first change at 7,700 kms (4,700 miles), and the 2nd with 12,400 kms (7,600 miles) on the oil.

I got the car towed to Performance Hyundai and the service manager Bryan Nobble said that since I didn't have proper maintenance records (aka I didn't get raped with dealer oil changes), they had to tear down the engine to see if they failure was a manufacture defect or lack of maintenance (sludge). This just proves this whole thing is a witch hunt. It doesn't matter if I were still on the original factory oil change, there's simply not enough mileage on the engine to have sludge.

On my 2nd oil change, I also got the oil analyzed and it showed the oil was still within specs and still approx. 15% worth of active additives (Total Base Number) which means I could probably have went another 2000-3000 kms without the oil falling out of spec. My father is a mechanic so I've been into cars all my life, have built several engines, have raced cars, and NEVER have I ever had an engine failure.

I'll update once I hear back from the dealer whether they'll deny the warranty or not. I've already told the dealer that I am not taking no for an answer and will fight this, even in court until Hyundai does the right thing and replaces my engine under warranty.

Update from Oct 19, 2015: New crate engine being installed under warranty. It took about 2 weeks to get the go ahead. Car should be ready by Oct 23, 2015. I will probably be ditching the car because this is the 2nd major problem I've had with this car, and a few minor ones. This should not be happening on a 16 month old car with 24,000 kms.